CHAPTER 3: THE WEIGHT OF LIGHT
Betaal's first breath in Sadhanarok tasted like burning stone.His lungs rejected it. His body convulsed. For a moment that stretched too long, he couldn't remember how to exist in a place that wasn't his own.When his eyes opened, there was no Ashvan City.
No courtyard.
No Priya standing alone with a clock that had begun to tick. Just wasteland And silence so heavy it had weight.
He tried to stand.
His legs didn't obey. They'd forgotten their agreement with intention. When he finally managed to rise, the ground beneath him cracked—not from his weight, but from something underneath. Something that shouldn't be underneath anything.Betaal looked down.The earth was covered in symbols—ancient, intricate, wrong. They pulsed with sickly purple light.
Wherever that light touched, the ground turned to ash. He stood in one of the symbols, his body casting shadows that shouldn't exist in light this bright.
Where am ?
The question existed in the space between his thoughts and the world's indifference. For a moment—terrifying, disorienting—there was no answer.Then the light came.
Not the gold-purple light that had ripped him from Koratri.
This was different.
Clinical.
A screen of pure luminescence materializing in the air before him, letters forming like insects crawling across glass:
[MULTIVERSAL PROTOCOL] [INITIATEDENTITY IDENTIFIED ]
(BETAAL)
[ORIGIN:] (KORATRI UNIVERSE)
[DESIGNATION:] {REGIONAL DEMIGOD}(TIER 3)
[CURRENT LOCATION:]
(SADHANAROK UNIVERSE)
[STATUS:] (COLLAPSINGMISSION)
[BRIEFING:] [You have been selected by the OMNIGOD for emergency deployment.]
This world is dying.
Cultivators have transcended through unnatural means.
Power without wisdom. The result: dimensional fractures, corrupted souls, and the assassination of this realm's Demigod.
Your task: Restoration.
OBJECTIVES:I
dentify corruption source Neutralize corrupted cultivators (minimum: 100)
Restore spiritual balance to 7 major sects Seal dimensional fractures (current: 47)
[TIMELINE: 1000 DAYSFAILURE CONSEQUENCE:] Universal collapse. All souls lost.
You will be recalled for judgment.
Your riddles are your weapon.
Your judgment is your duty.
Your mercy is your weakness.
Betaal stared at the words.
"Mercy is my weakness?"
he whispered.
The interface didn't respond. It simply dissolved, particles of light scattering across the wasteland like dying stars.He turned slowly, taking in his surroundings for the first time with intention.
Sadhanarok was beautiful the way a funeral pyre is beautiful. Mountains rose in the distance, peaks jagged and smoking. Rivers—or what used to be rivers—carved through the land, but instead of water, they ran with something viscous and dark. The sky was a ceiling of perpetual sunset, frozen in the moment before night swallows everything. And scattered across the landscape: ruins. Not ancient ruins. Fresh ones. Buildings torn apart violently. Stone walls with holes punched through them by forces that shouldn't exist. Entire villages reduced to rubble. With each step toward the nearest ruin,
Betaal felt it: the corruption. Not visible, but present. Alive. Conscious. Hungry. Like standing near fire and feeling heat without seeing flame.When he reached what had once been a temple, he saw them.The bodies weren't dead.That would have been kinder.Instead, they were frozen mid-scream, their bodies twisted into shapes that violated geometry. Some had extra limbs growing from their torsos. Others had faces split open to reveal nothing but darkness inside—no skull, no brain. Just void And their eyes were still moving.
Betaal knelt beside one of them—a woman, or what used to be a woman. Her mouth hung open in an eternal scream, and her tongue had become a snake. It moved slowly, tasting the air, searching for something it would never find."What did you do to yourself?" Betaal whispered. The woman's eyes found his. For one moment—just one—there was recognition. Consciousness. A soul trapped inside a body that had become its own prison.Then the recognition faded.
The eyes went blank. The snake-tongue resumed its endless, futile search.Betaal stood. His hands were shaking.This is what happens when power consumes purpose.A light materialized—smaller now, less intrusive.
Like a whisper:
[OBSERVATION:] (You display empathy.)
[ANALYSIS:] (Empathy will hinder mission efficiency.)
[RECOMMENDATION:] Suppress emotional responses. The corrupted are beyond saving.
Betaal read the words.
Then he looked back at the woman.
"No," he said quietly.
QUERY:
"No" to which parameter?
"No to all of it,
" Betaal said.
"If mercy is weakness, then I choose to be weak. If empathy hinders efficiency, then let me be inefficient. I was sent here to restore balance, not to become what destroyed it.
"The interface flickered. For a moment, it seemed almost surprised.WARNING: Unconventional methods yield unconventional consequences. The OMNIGOD is watching.It vanished.Betaal walked deeper into the ruins.
The air grew thicker, harder to breathe, as if corruption itself had become atmosphere. Then he heard it: breathing. Real. Conscious. Alive. He rounded a corner and found him.
A cultivator—young, maybe twenty—sitting against a broken wall. His robes were torn, blood-stained, but his eyes were clear. Uncorrupted. He held a sword across his lap, and when he saw Betaal, his grip tightened."Stay back," the cultivator said hoarsely. "I've killed three corrupted today. I can kill one more."Betaal stopped. Raised his hands slowly, palms open. "I'm not corrupted.""Everyone says that. Right before their face splits open.""Fair point." Betaal breathed slowly. "My name is Betaal. I'm new here. And I'm trying to understand what happened."The cultivator studied him. His eyes—dark, exhausted—searched for deception or truth.Finally, he lowered the sword. "My name is Ryn. What happened is simple: we reached for godhood. We touched it. And it burned us alive."Betaal moved closer slowly, non-threateningly. He sat down a few feet from Ryn, mirroring his posture."Can I ask you something?" Betaal said.Ryn laughed—bitter, broken. "Why not? World's ending anyway.""If you could go back to the moment before you reached for that power... would you stop yourself?"Ryn's expression shifted. The bitterness faded, replaced by something deeper. Grief."That's not a fair question," he whispered."Riddles never are.""You're testing me. Seeing if I'm corrupted.""No," Betaal said. "I'm asking because I need to know if there's anyone left worth saving. If corruption has taken everything, or if there's still something underneath—something that remembers what it was before the hunger."Ryn was silent for a long time. The wasteland held its breath.Finally: "I would stop myself. Not because I regret the power. But because I miss the person I was before I needed it."Betaal felt something shift inside him. Not satisfaction. Not validation. Something quieter. Something like hope."Then you're not corrupted," Betaal said. "Not completely.""How do you know?""Because corruption doesn't regret. It only hungers."The sky above Sadhanarok flickered.For just a moment, the gold-orange burning faded. And in its place: a thread. Silver. Gossamer. Stretching from somewhere far above, down to where they sat.It touched Betaal's shoulder.Where it made contact, he felt warmth. Not burning. Not painful. Just warmth. Like being remembered by someone who'd thought you were lost.Then it faded.And Betaal understood: Every choice mattered. Every moment of mercy, every question asked instead of answered—it all became a thread. A connection. A way for broken universes to remember how to heal."What was that?" Ryn asked, staring at where the thread had been."The beginning," Betaal said. "Or maybe the end. I'm not sure yet."He stood, offered his hand to Ryn. "Come with me. I'm going to need help if I'm going to save this world. And you're going to need a purpose that isn't just survival."Ryn looked at the offered hand. Then, slowly, he took it.But as they stood together, looking out at the wasteland of Sadhanarok, Betaal noticed something that made his blood freeze:The threads above them were still breaking.And with each break, the sky grew darker.